“La bière de Louvain,” is to be found in every hotel and estaminet in Belgium. We went over one of the largest breweries, that of Messrs. Renier, Hambrouk and Co., the Barclay and Perkins of Belgium. It is but recently built, and being an entirely new building from the foundation, its arrangements are the most commodious and compact imaginable; it is calculated to brew two hundred barrels a-day, and is now in full work; its usual stock is 14,000 barrels. The machinery had been constructed by Sir John Rennie, of London, but has since been increased. I found here the same preference for high pressure steam engines which seems so universal in Belgium, the one erected was a low pressure one, very much to the regret of one of the proprietors, M. Behr, who conducted us over the establishment. The apparatus exhibited all the recent English improvements, but what is, I think, considered dangerous in England, they had a large copper cooler in use. Their boilers were constructed with one cylinder within another, to avoid burning in the process, a precaution which is rendered necessary from the quantity of wheat flour used for their favourite and peculiar “white beer.”
The malt which was on the floors had been allowed to germinate much longer than in England, in fact, till a shoot of half an inch to an inch long had issued from each grain. By this means, the saccharine matter is intentionally so exhausted, that the beer has but little or no flavour of it. The name of their ordinary beer is Peetermans, (from an ancient military corps of Louvain, which had existed since the thirteenth century), and the finer is the bière blanche, which is consumed at a distance in large quantities. An Englishman would not let either enter his lips, they are both as thin as water and as sour as verjuice, and yet the quantities consumed everywhere in Belgium is quite surprising. The annual consumption, calculated upon the excise duty paid upon beer, which is upwards of seven millions of francs per annum, and is collected in the proportion of one franc and a half for every hectolitre, or twenty-six gallons, amounts to 5,400,000 hectolitres, or something above four millions of barrels, being about thirty-five gallons per annum for every individual of the population! A small quantity only, not exceeding 40,000 gallons, is for foreign export. The usual price is about twelve francs a hectolitre, from which some idea may be formed of the “thin potations” in which the Belgian peasant delights.
The operation of making this light beer is amazingly quick, the malt is mashed one day, brewed and cooled the next, fermented for forty-eight hours, and drunk the fourth morning. That for immediate use is fermented in the barrel on its end, a practice unusual in this country, but which M. Behr conceived advantageous. A chime, rather deeper than usual, served to retain on the top, the barm and the liquid forced up by the expansion of the fermentation, which, as the process declined, retired again to its place, thus keeping constantly an ascending and descending current, which facilitated the operation, beside being more cleanly and costing less labour. Every different district in Belgium produces a different kind of beer, which, curiously enough, cannot be successfully imitated by the others, thus the brewers of Brussels have not succeeded in producing the uytzet of Ghent, nor those of Ghent the yellow faro which is the favourite beverage of Brussels, whilst both have failed to rival the “white beer” of Louvain.
The great lion of Louvain is its Town Hall, which is certainly the most surprisingly rich specimen of gothic architecture in the world. It is literally covered with most elaborate and intricate carvings from the foundation to the roof. Charles V spoke of placing the Cathedral of Antwerp under a glass shade, but actually one is inclined to wish for something of the kind to keep the dust from discolouring the florid tracery of the Hôtel de Ville at Louvain. It is situated in a little ancient square in which Marshal Villeroy held a council of war by torch-light on the night of the Battle of Ramilies, in 1706. The building itself, which is of the fifteenth century, is small, but its proportions and ornaments are of the most delicate elegance. It has no tower, but the heaviness of its lofty roof is relieved by turrets at the corners. The whole front is covered with bas-reliefs, representing the history of and the destruction of the Cities of the Plain, with more fidelity than is reconcileable to modern taste. The whole has for many years been undergoing a thorough restoration, which is now complete, every decayed piece of stone being accurately replaced by a fac-simile of the original carved work. The interior is not suitable to the beauty of the outside, and an old hall on the third story is fitted up as a gallery, with a wretched collection of pictures, which are libellously ascribed to the old masters. There is, however, a gallery in Louvain of high repute, that of M. Vanderschreick, which contains a number of superb paintings of the Dutch school, Rubens, Teniers, Vandyke, Rembrandt, and, in short, a specimen of all its best masters. It is accessible to strangers, and since the dispersion of M. Schamp’s pictures at Ghent, is, perhaps, the best collection in Belgium.
The churches in Louvain, notwithstanding the long presence of so many luminaries of the establishment, are not eminent for either their riches or their beauty. The Collegiate Church of St. Pierre, which is the principal one, has a superbly carved pulpit by Berger of great height—a rock crowned with trees, and at its foot, St. Peter on one side denying Christ, and at the other, Saul struck from his horse on his way to persecute the Christians of Damascus. A little chapel at the back of the altar is dedicated to St. Margaret, the saint of maid-servants, and is connected with a curious little legend illustrative of the times. Margrietje was the domestic of an old couple, who kept an hostelry for pilgrims in the year 1225, at Louvain. Her master and his wife had resolved to retire from the world, and had converted all their property into money, with which they were about to retire into the monastery of St. Bernard. On the eve of their putting this plan into execution, however, some miscreants formed a conspiracy to assassinate them, and, disguising themselves as pilgrims, came late in the evening to seek for shelter at the accustomed inn. The good old people anxious to perform their last act of charity, sent Margaret to bring wine in a wooden bottle, still preserved in the church. The pretended pilgrims then strangled their hosts, and on Margaret’s return, she shared a similar fate. Her body, however, which they carried out and precipitated into the Dyle, instead of sinking in the river, floated back against the stream crowned with an aureole, and the ripple of the water making sweet music as it bore her along. The Duke and Duchess of Brabant astonished at the miracle, caused a chapel to be built for her remains at the back of the great church of St. Pierre, where her body was embalmed and enclosed in a gilded shrine. The fame and the fidelity of the interesting saint attracted crowds of devotees to her tomb, and in time the door upon the street was closed, and another opened from the church, where the chapel and the altar of Margrietje are still the favourite resort of the serving maidens of Brabant.
The church of Saint Michel, which once belonged to the order of the Jesuits, was one of the most sumptuous in the city: it has, however, been dismantled of all its ornaments, and its superbly carved pulpit was removed by Maria Theresa to the Church of St. Gudule at Brussels. During the reign of the French republic, St. Michel’s was converted into the Temple of Reason for the district, and the statue of the Saviour was removed from the altar to make room for the Goddess of Liberty. The tomb of Justus Lipsius in the old ruined convent of the Recollets, with its sententious inscription written by himself, is a curious illustration of “the pride that apes humility.”
“Quis his sepultus, quæris, ipse edisseram
Nuper locutus et stylo et linguâ fui
Nunc alteri licebit. Ego sum Lipsius
Cui litteræ dant nomen et tuus favor;